


Suspicions

by Insecuriosity



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: A night in the life of Krobus, Krobus' POV, Not Beta Read, Other, Slight Shadow brute worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2018-09-17 16:04:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9332672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Insecuriosity/pseuds/Insecuriosity
Summary: Krobus often came out of his sewers at night. Looking through the valley, he would listen to the humans that had not yet gone to their homes and beds. Their gossip and stories are fascinating.One day, Krobus learned of a new human in the valley - a human that emerged from the mines with a load of Void Essence...





	1. Chapter 1

Humans, Krobus thought to himself, are undeniably odd.

There were two humans laying on the ground, on top of a patch of grass, their limbs entangled as if in a particularly slow and wriggly form of combat. A younger, ignorant Krobus might have tried to intervene – but he had been near the humans long enough to pick up some of their ‘cues’.  
The humans were making their fun-noise right now. The weird quick hiccupping they did when they liked something. 

Krobus watched from the shadows the plants as the two humans continued their ritual. He had watched them many times before, sitting through their wrestling. They weren’t the first humans he had encountered, but they were the humans that had mattered the most.  
Krobus’ kind lived far out of reach from humans. He had never even heard of their language, until the fellows of his community had started to whisper about humans digging deeper and deeper, carrying swords and knives. 

Krobus had been very curious, instead of outraged like his fellows. He had gone up to see who they were – the humans - and how they communicated.   
Krobus shuddered. The pallid shadows of his body ached around his midriff, where his first human had cut him open with a sword. A human with one completely black eye, and a red fabric over his right arm. A human that had blocked his way back into the mines. 

“Ahh-…Demetrius…” The female human said, drawing Krobus’ attention back to the present. He could tell that their ritual was almost over. He could smell them – their odd juices mingling with the air, only tangible via scent. 

When fleeing from the human with the sword, Krobus had stumbled across these humans. Hiding in the shadows of trees and bushes he had tried to stay silent, hoping to Yoba that he would not be found.  
A few hours late, these two humans had walked into the woods to perform their ritual. Krobus had listened, and when he’d dared to poke his head out of his hiding spot, he had watched. The strange ritualistic wrestle of the humans had distracted him, and it had doused his fear – if only slightly. After their ritual, the humans talked, and Krobus learned. 

“Ah- ahh… That was a really good one.” The female human said. Krobus watched a little more intently. After all this time it was still the human’s conversation that fascinated him more than anything. It was never about important things – but it was always about things that Krobus was never able to experience. Odd stories, just beyond his grasp of understanding, yet thoroughly fascinating.   
There was this ‘Say Basti – Jon’ that they spoke about often, and his ‘step-sister’ Mah-ru. There were also the people of the town, the people that rarely came outside for Krobus to watch, and talk of a ‘Joja’ on occasion. Krobus liked any new information that came his way, really. 

“We should probably stop doing field research like this.” The male responded, and it made the female hiccup in her happy human way. 

“You always say that, and yet here we are.” Female said. They were silent for a moment, watching the stars in the sky above them. “I forgot to ask today – how is your research on the mine coming along?”

The male hummed. “It is going wonderful – you remember the new farmer? She has been an amazing help to my projects already, and she’s only been here for a few months!” 

Krobus perked up from his hiding spot. Someone new had arrived? He wondered what their name was, and what exactly a ‘farmer’ was around these parts. Their presence was bound to bring a lot of new and interesting information to Krobus’ ears!

The male continued, oblivious to Krobus’ excitement. “She’s prepared to go deeper into the mine than anyone else in this town. Just a few days back she dumped a pile of… something, right in my hands. I don’t even know what it was, but it was fascinating after I got over the initial scare.”

Krobus’ skin rippled in unease. Was the human describing-….Void essence? Krobus hunched a little bit, and his own void essence knotted and tangled inside of his skin. Had someone … reached the lava tunnels? 

“Oh, was THAT what had you yelping like a schoolgirl?” Female giggled. “I think you really scared her with your reaction – she was out the door before I could offer her a cup of coffee!”

“You would have been startled too!” Male protested. “It was some sort of shadow-like substance, and it seemed to move on its own even when kept in a vacuum-seal! It wasn’t just a slimy fish or a fungi- the implications – What could be down there?” 

“I’m just teasing you Dem. I know you’re not scared of just any random thing.” Female said with a smile, and the humans brought their heads close together. Krobus could hear the sounds of wet flesh meeting flesh. “…I suppose that is why the mine was closed. I always wondered why they did that- there was tons of ore still left in there if you believe Gil.”

“Mmm….” The male answered, and there was a moment of silence again. Krobus no longer enjoyed the atmosphere. His curiosity had turned into a more dire need. 

“Tomorrow I might put up a notice again.” Male continued. “We’re not short on money for that, are we?”

Female hiccupped her human amusement. “The new farmer just commissioned an upgrade to her house – it’s more money than we’ve seen in years! Maybe I should start farming too.”

“Let me know when you do, I’ll come dissect your parsnips for you.”

“Pff! You can dissect my parsnips anyday! Haha!” 

Krobus fidgeted as the humans stood and began to trudge back to their house. A new human had gone deep into the mines, and had come back with a load of void essence.   
Krobus could not say he had tightly knit bonds with his fellows, or that he felt deep sorrow over the loss of their lives. He felt…. Afraid. 

How long had it been since the war with the Dwarves had been suspended? His fellows had once numbered in so many that Krobus had been able to meet new faces for weeks on end, but the war with the Dwarves had thinned them out to a shadow.   
They had done the same to the Dwarves, but Krobus knew that for every Dwarven life that was taken, tens of his fellows had died. Dwarves fought at distance, Krobus and his fellows fought with claw and teeth. 

If the humans decided that his kind was… undesireable, they could upset the balance of an already very wobbly truce. 

With soft rustling steps, Krobus came out of hiding. His blackened appearance seeming almost see-through in the light of the moon.  
He entered the human mine, shying away from the light at the doorway, and he carefully made his way through the man-made cave. He knew what signs to look for, and his essence trembled when he found what he had been hoping to not find. Small and big scorch marks on the rocks – oddly patterned indentations in the walls, an oddly coloured portion of rock … There was a dwarf here. 

Why? Why – why was there a Dwarf here!? These mines were not their territory! Did the human talk to them? Did the Dwarf convince them to end their ignorance-fuelled neutrality in the war?

Krobus’ shadows sharpened at the edges. If both humans and Dwarves attacked his fellows, they could be wiped out. Krobus would have no place to return to – and both human and dwarf would be his enemy.   
He did not have any place to hide – his spot in the sewers had already been found once, and he’d had to drive them away with his song! If the mines were overtaken, Krobus would be looking at the life of a fugitive. The human with the black eye would find him, and tear him open from his belly to his jaw. Krobus wouldn’t escape a second time. 

Restlessly, Krobus paced around the top of the ladder that would lead downwards. He wanted nothing more than to descend all the way down to the warm comfortable caverns of his fellows, and bask in the idea of safety and security, but he knew that it would not do anything.   
If the humans had truly forged a pact with the Dwarves, there was very little he would be able to do to save his fellows. Krobus’ warning would be taken as a reason to start killing Dwarf and Human alike – rekindling the war regardless of how little chance they stood at winning it. 

So it came down to Krobus to get to the bottom of it all. 

Krobus whimpered softly. His name was going to be the death of him one day, wasn’t it? Bridge builder… How many people died in the process of constructing a bridge? Were there other fellows that had earned this name, that woud take his place if he failed? 

Krobus lingered around the entrance of the mines, looking down into the caverns, before he came to his decision.   
Leaving the mine as quietly as possible, so as not to disturb the Dwarve(s), Krobus hurried over the countryside of the valley. At this point, all humans were fast asleep, leaving the world to the creatures of the night. 

It took quite some time for Krobus to find the farm that belonged to the new farmer. It had been warded against monsters of his kind, and didn’t that paint a dreadful picture?   
It was only at a weakened point, all the way at the edge of the fields, that Krobus could squeeze himself in. It was already lucky that the ward was only at the boundaries of the farm, and not spread out over the entire area. 

His essence trembling as he went, he navigated the debris of the field until he reached the farm. The open sky had never been a comfort to him, and the bare tilled field only stimulated his discomfort. 

The farm itself was just a small and dilapidated human house. The lights were off, but a trickle of smoke made its way out of the chimney on top. There was no way to tell what the farm’s purpose was, other than it being like any other human-house. In front of it, the earth had been churned into neat little rows, with perfectly uniform plants arranged on top of them.  
To Krobus, it looked ominous. Was it a ritual of some kind? A gathering of human armaments? Just to be safe, he avoided touching any of them as he approached the house. 

The wooden steps creaked softly as he stepped on them, like a warning, or an alarm. Krobus listened intently as he snuck towards the window, and peeked inside.   
There was a fire smouldering away in a corner of the room, contained by a brick structure. A dog laid curled up in front of it, paws crossed over each other, and head down. On the bed was a human. A female, it appeared, tangled in the sheets and wet with the watery excretion that was so common with humans.

Krobus leaned closer to the window, and stared inside, committing the human’s every aspect to memory. She had a dog – she lived on a ‘farm’, which made her a ‘farmer’ - her head-covering was short and brown…  
It was not enough information for Krobus to draw any conclusions, but he would be able to keep an ear out for this human in any gossip he heard. 

Inside of the house, the dog’s ears twitched, and Krobus quickly retreated. He wriggled himself through the little gap in the wards, and hurried back to his home in the sewers. As much as he liked to scout for muchrooms and dead animals at night, he needed the comfort of his own little home.  
Slipping through the bars of the sewer grate was easy, and Krobus rattled it on his way in to make sure that the lock was still in place. 

He walked over to where he had made his home, and breathed in the scents of the sewer. 

There was still a chance that he was not getting the whole picture. Humans didn’t really associate with other races – they had been neutral in the war. Perhaps this ‘farmer’ was just an outlier, an odd human. Just like how Krobus was odd among his own fellows.   
Maybe the human had found that void essence somewhere else, or it was something that just resembled it a lot. Maybe the human had not even met the Dwarf yet – maybe it was all just a compounding misunderstanding. 

Krobus really hoped so. If a single human could penetrate the depths of the lava caverns, and slay enough of his fellows to get a heap of void essence… he didn’t want to think of what a whole grouping could do. 

Even the Wizard wouldn’t be able to stop them if they wanted to wage war. And Krobus would be right on the frontlines. The first to die.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krobus takes his concerns to someone that might be able to help him without re igniting a 2000 year old conflict.

Not for the first time, Krobus disliked the sun. Or perhaps more aptly, he hated his own body for keeping him confined in the darkness whenever the sun was out. 

Humans had always been difficult to spy on, but that had been part of the charm when he had first started to observe them. Finding humans outside during the night was a rarity – and a pair of them even more so.  
Gathering crumbs of conversation and new interesting words that he could only guess the meaning of had been a wondrous thing. Something to keep him busy when he was confined in his home, and to play with.

Now that he felt like he had the fate of his species resting on his back, Krobus hated their elusiveness. 

If he had any hope of catching a conversation, he could not wait for the sun’s light to drain completely, nor for the artificial human lights to turn off. He had to risk burns, hopping from shadow to shadow as the last rays of sunlight disappeared.   
Whenever he caught them speaking, it was rarely about the things that plagued him so, and when it was, it only served to fuel the anxious coiling in his body. 

The ‘farmer’ gifted items to the humans of the village. The ‘farmer’ had something to do with the ‘Joja’, and the blue cylindrical shapes that often drifted into the sewer. The ‘farmer’ had fixed important parts of the town. The ‘farmer’ had run an errand for someone which had made someone happy –…  
The farmer posted a notice looking for a Dwarven Scroll. The farmer spent almost entire days in the mines. The farmer came back with so much void essence that they had tried gifting it to several people in town. 

And that was all that Krobus had to show for a whole week of his best efforts. Everything he saw or heard seemed to imply the working relationship between the human and the dwarves, but he knew how flawed a single pair of eyes could be – even if they were his own.   
Even if he had trouble seeing anything good in the actions of the new farmer, he couldn’t afford taking a misstep. Krobus refused to be the stray spark that ignited the war again. 

So, after a terrible week of worrying, and a night’s worth of procrastination, Krobus was heading towards the Wizard’s tower. Crunching through the early winter snow, he could only hope that the wizard had remained a neutral party. Both he and the farmer were humans, after all. It was not much of a stretch to think that the arrival of a new and virile human had invited the Wizard to take action – though Krobus liked to think better of the odd human. 

He slid through a slit in the doorway, and drew his skin closed against the thick grassy fumes coming from the Wizard’s brew. The air stung against his essence, and there was an ominous sound of chopping coming from somewhere in the smoke. 

“Hello?” He burbled as loudly as he dared. The Wizard had odd visitors sometimes, and not all of them were fond of Shadow brutes. “Rasmodius, I’ve come to talk.”

“Ahh, Shadow diplomat.” The Wizard’s voice seemed to cut through the thick smoke, and the male human appeared before Krobus as if he’d always been there. “I was not expecting you. Has there been a development, or is this a poor attempt at an assassination?” 

Krobus bristled, and inched a little closer to the door. Unlike a moment before, it was closed. “I am not here on behalf of my species. I simply wanted to … clarify something with you.”

“Oh?”

“There is a new human in the valley.” Krobus said. “Do you know of their actions?”

“Mmm, the farmer.” The Wizard murmured. He was focused on something else, rubbing a horribly spicy powder between his fingers as he checked on the content of his flat cauldron. “Quite attuned with the spirits, this one. The junimo have already shown themselves to her, and they have roped her into quite a few contracts as well, as far as I can tell. Which actions do you mean specifically?” 

Krobus shifted uncomfortably. “She has killed my fellows.” 

The Wizard was quiet for a moment, and he looked Krobus right in the eyes as he poured the poweder into his cauldron. “Your kind, as well as the Dwarves’, decided to stay hidden from human eyes. With all the risks included. You were present while it was discussed, and I know for a fact you understood what you were agreeing with.”  
Unbiddenly, his purple eyes drew to Krobus’ belly, tracing the invisible scar that ran from Krobus’ mouth corner to his hip. “Otherwise you would have been in here far earlier, wouldn’t you?”

Krobus shuddered. He did not want to linger on the idea that the Wizard had seen his near-death. Either in a futuristic vision or a real-time witness, the man had not lifted a finger to help. 

“She has been coming out of the mines with sacks full of void essence.” Krobus said, not quite able to hide the tremble in his voice. “You cannot call that a ‘chance encounter’ that went south. There is a Dwarf hiding in the mines, and the farmer is speaking with them. She carries a sword wherever she goes. She has wards on her ‘farm’- ! She speaks with the man who carries an eye patch!”

“It seems you need a little refreshing when it comes to the agreement,” The wizard spoke tersely. “Since all of this has long been discussed! For the right to defend your kin’s claimed territory with no exceptions or trial for the trespasser, all other beings have been gifted the right to fight back. Knowing your kind very intimately, _Brute_ , I can safely say I doubt that the farmer was welcomed kindly when she entered the mines. I dare say that none of your fellows breathed even a single word at her.” 

Krobus would have liked to deny him, but he knew how touchy the subject of home was with his fellows. There were very few places left that had been untainted by the war or the dwarves, and the depths of the Stardew valley mines was one of them. 

“I suspect the only reason you care is because for once it is not the Shadow Brutes reaping the benefits of this arrangement.” Any notion of disdain had disappeared from the Wizard’s voice as if it had never been there to begin with, and he turned to his cauldron – sprinkling tiny crystals into the mix. “Remind me, how many curious fae and junimo were unceremoniously killed upon crossing your kind’s invisible border?” 

Krobus shrunk in on himself. “… and the Dwarf then? It is speaking to the humans, sharing their side of the tale only!”

The Wizard let out a laugh at that. “That solution is easy. Simply talk to her and share your side of the story! Or is it that you are afraid, shadow person? Afraid that the humans have already picked a side, and that it isn’t the one you are on?”

Krobus didn’t have to answer. Both of them knew that the wizard spoke the truth, and Krobus’s shadows faded until the smoke of the wizard’s cauldron mixed with his essence. 

“If it gives you any comfort, Diplomat, neither I or her speak for all of mankind. And I, for one, do not believe she knows you to be sentient.” The Wizard turned away, and began rifling through his collection of bottles and jars. One of them was a shimmering jar of void essence. “Your kind is not very talkative, with you as a sole exception that is.”

“No one bothers to learn our language.” Krobus replied, but it was without true bite. He could not muster any anger over something so small when his concerns only seemed to become heavier.

“Meet the farmer, and tell her of your side of the conflict.” The wizard said, as he poured the spicy powder and a dead eel into his cauldron. “Once she knows of your kind and their history, and she still sides with the Dwarves, I will intervene.”

Krobus stared. The Wizard put his flat little cauldron back onto the flames, and the powdered eel writhed and popped in a bath of oily water.   
“… How will you know if she sides with the Dwarves?” He asked, hoping that the answer was not what he was thinking. 

“I think you know me well enough to know the answer to that.” The Wizard deflected.

“I would like to hear you say it, please.”

“Fine then.” The wizard said. “If she kills you, pacifist brute, either before or after listening to your side of the story, I will assume she has chosen a side in an old conflict. I will assume that she intends to rekindle the war between Dwarf and Brute, and will take steps to prevent further loss of life. Until then, she is allowed to slay as many of your kind as she likes, by the rules your people insisted on.” 

“Ah….” Krobus had known this answer would be coming, and it still managed to instil dread in him to hear it spoken out loud. “I see.” 

“You can choose to stay hidden, if you so desire.” The Wizard said. “One human killing Brutes does not a truce break, and like I said before; the humans are far from a singular united front. I see no reason to interfere.” 

He turned away, and sprinkled red cubes of sharp vegetable in his flat cauldron. Krobus flinched away from the biting scent and the angrily jumping spats of oil that flew through the air.   
“You may stay for dinner if you so like.” The Wizard said. “Spiced eel is good to bolster ones nerves, and convince the spirits to aid you.”

Krobus shuddered, and stared at the mixture of death pooling in the Wizard’s flat cauldron. If that was what brought upon the spirits of good fortune, perhaps Krobus would be better off with bad luck. He idly wondered if the concoction was truly food, or a simple edible potion. 

“No thank you.” He muttered, almost choking on the spice in the air. “I will have to think about our conversation.”

“Good luck, Krobus. Have a nice night.” The Wizard said, and he deftly plucked a bit of ‘spice deal’ from his cauldron to taste. 

Krobus fled the tower. In all the years he had known the wizard, he’d never heard him address anyone by name. He could only hope it was a good omen, instead of an ominous goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was feeling the inspiration since I picked up Stardew Valley again. I WILL get that 'Master Chef' achievement unlocked you hear me?! I will also find a way to mod it so that I can marry Krobus and stuff him full of void eggs and void mayo, but until then writing a fic is easier. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! My writing blog is insecwrites.tumblr.com, though I predominantly write Transformers :)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic after I realised that Krobus could not be married, and that he had no heart events. A displeased player am I! But, to fill the void, I decided to write some Krobus. 
> 
> This story is meant to have a continuation, going more into detail about what Krobus does to prevent disaster, and how he meets the 'farmer'. Since I do not know if I will end up writing that, I have posted this as a one-shot. 
> 
> Thank you very much for reading! If you've found continuity errors, typo's, or other oddities, please let me know in a comment and I'll go fix it right away.


End file.
